1) To watch Marci’s favorite team play in the National Championship Game (Anthony is a former Duck football player himself, so he loves Oregon as well).  We went to an “Oregon bar” in Scottsdale to root on the Ducks.  Well, they cheered on the Ducks but I quietly (I cheered in my head) cheered on Auburn, as a Tiger victory would win me some money in an office pool.  I never thought I’d say this, War Eagle!  And the more important reason for the trip to Arizona…

2) To get a visit in with Bret Contreras before he makes the move to New Zealand.  For those of you who don’t know the “Glute Guy,” let me introduce him;

Bret is a trainer that has taken the industry by storm over the past year.  He has a very popular blog and probably knows more about the glutes than any other person in the world.  But, he is definitely more than just a Glute Guy.  His knowledge is deep and he gets his clients results, plain and simple.  Here is a picture of Bret’s clients, Karli, Katie, and Kellie…

Marci and I had the chance to talk shop with Bret and have him coach us through a few new(er) exercises for a few hours.  But when you have so much to talk about, that 3 hours goes by way too fast.  With that said, we still got a lot out of our visit, and it was definitely worth the trip!  Below is a summary of the “highlights” (at least in my eyes) of our time with Bret in his garage gym (aka, BCSC).  I’ll paraphrase (in red) what he had to say to Marci and myself.  And at times, I’ll add my 2 cents …

-Which is the best way to train?  Is it full body, an upper/lower split, or a body part split?  None of these necessarily.  Each person responds differently to training.  You have to experiment to find out which is best for you.  For example, if I don’t hit a muscle group/movement often (i.e. with full body training), I get weaker.  But my training partner is just the opposite.  He definitely gets his best results while hitting each body part one time per week (i.e. body part split). 

Danny’s note: I feel that with all the different splits I’ve tried over the years, that no particular split has gotten me considerably better results than the other.  For this reason, over the course of a training year, I incorporate all three “types” (full body, upper/lower, and body part split).

-When it comes to females however, I prefer full body training for the majority.  They recover quicker and most likely detrain quicker.  Therefore hitting a muscle/movement frequently is probably best for the majority of females (to read Bret’s thoughts on training females in more detail, check out this blog post - http://bretcontreras.com/2010/10/training-women/).

-Simply getting people stronger (in a smart, progressive manner) is not only great for athletic performance and physique enhancement, it can be very powerful in preventing injury.  Awhile back, my buddy told me that he was scheduled to have back surgery in two weeks.  So I asked him, ‘why haven’t you come in to see me!?!’  He decided to give it a shot and not only were we able to avoid him having this surgery, he now has ZERO back pain!

Danny’s Note: While there are a million examples of how strengthening the entire body can help prevent injury, here are a couple common that I see: Running one mile is essentially 1500 repetitions (in the same repetitive fashion) at two to five times your body weight (depending on your speed).  Do you think strengthening the muscles around the hips, knees, and ankles will provide those joints some extra support to help with all of this pounding?  I sure do!  Another example: people that have weak glutes will call on the syngerists to perform a task (i.e. sprinting).  If the glutes are not doing their job, the hamstrings will have to work overtime which could lead to a hamstring injury (this is called synergistic dominance).  Getting the glutes stronger will often spare the back, which I suspect is one reason that Bret’s friend no longer has any back pain.  Ahh, the power of the glutes!

-People seem to be forgetting about muscles.  I know the nervous system is important, but lets not devalue the importance of our muscles.

-Band Hip Rotations…

Danny’s note: Bret went over this exercise with Marci and I.  It is great because it works the hip external rotators (including the glute max as an external rotator).  Marci and I also noted how much we felt it in our core.  Talk about a big-bang-for-your-buck movement!

-Quite often, we set the bar way too low.  Danny, if I look at you and think, ‘hey, you look like a 225 bench presser, then that is probably all that I’m going to get out of you.’  I expect big things from my clients, which has been very helpful in getting them great results!

Danny’s note:  I wasn’t sure if Bret really thought I was a 225 pound bench presser.  So after he finished making his point, I quickly chimed in, “by the way, my bench is 300!”  Marci and Bret thought it was funny that it was important for me to let him know that me maxing ONLY 225 pounds was NOT TRUE! 

-Let me show you two what my life is like.  Come take a look in my bedroom.  You see ALL OF those bodybuilding magazines on the floor by my bed?  I’m always reading bodybuilding mags.  We can learn a ton from this group!  Too many coaches/trainers dismiss the methods of bodybuilders.  I think that is a huge mistake.  Believe me, I also learn from the powerlifters, olympic lifters, and athletes.  But we can take a little something from each group and use it to optimize the training of our clients, and for our own training.  The key is to know how and when to implement these different methods.

-Over the years, I’ve read a ton of bodybuilding magazines.  When I hear over and over and over again that the pump has been very important to them in achieving unbelievable results, there HAS TO BE something to it.

Danny’s Note: In my opinion, to achieve optimal results, a lot of it comes to how you interpret information.  And more importantly, how you apply this information.  If I had three guys tell me their opinion on “da pump,” it may sound like this.

Person 1 – “The pump is everything.  If you don’t go to the gym and achieve a BIG pump, then you’re wasting your time!”

Person 2 – “The pump doesn’t mean anything.  Getting stronger is all you need to achieve size.”

Person 3 – “To achieve maximum hypertrophy (muscle size), it is important to get stronger.  But it is also important to get a good pump.  This combination will yield optimal results.”

Person 1 and 2 are only speaking in half-truths.  While person 3 “gets it.”  He/she knows how to interpret and APPLY information!  I like person #3 and would like to play dodge ball with him (I don’t know, first thing that came to mind).

-Too many people in this field get so emotional with training.  If you and I disagree on something, that is ok.  I’ll still have no problem hanging out with you.  I’ve seen people that literally hate someone because they disagree with them on something regarding training.  Ridiculous!

-Trainers/coaches need to “palpate” their clients glutes.  How else are we going to know if they are getting them firing the way we want?  I’m not saying that we should molest them, but get in there and push into their glutes to see if they are firing during various exercises.

-Static assessments are important and can give us some indications.  But watching them move is way more powerful.

Danny here again: There was more to this visit, but above are some of the things that stood out to me.  I want to reiterate, the above is me paraphrasing what I took from our conversation.  Bret, if I misrepresented you in any way, feel free to call my glutes soft and squishy on your website – although we all know that is NOT true.

What Else?

Bret talked to us quite a bit about crunches and sit-ups and how he believes that they are being thrown under the bus a bit.  The research of Stuart McGill has made many of us stop (or greatly reduce) performing crunches/sit-ups.  For the most part Bret doesn’t  buy into the research but admits that a lot more research needs to be done.  I played devil’s advocate with him and said something like; “since we all sit way too much (with rounded-back posture and shortened hip flexors) crunches just reinforce that poor posture.  And as McGill has pointed out, it seems we have a fixed number of flexion/extension cycles on the lumbar spine before we herniate a disc (although this thought process may be flawed since this study was done on dead animals that do NOT have the recuperate abilities that us live humans have), I prefer to error on the side of caution and strengthen the rectus in other ways” (i.e. ab wheel rollouts).  Bret said that he wouldn’t blame a person for thinking this way and has no problem with that.  This is one thing that I really like about Bret; he is open-minded enough to listen to many different ideas and is not married to one philosophy. 

Since crunches/sit-ups were one of the first topics Bret brought up, I got the impression that he is passionate about this subject.  So stay tuned to get his thoughts in future blog posts on his ’site.

Bret’s client, professional baseball pitcher Steve Hammond came into train while we were there.  While he was training I took a video of him doing a single-leg hip thrust.  It was his first time trying it.  His first comment was that he felt the “up leg” (this is supposed to be the non-working leg) working quite a bit (too much).  But after getting the hang of it he started to rip off reps while fully activating the working glute (the down leg).  Here is the video…

Repping out 225 on his first day of trying these is not bad.  Especially considering that there are many people that can’t do one single leg body weight rep properly!

Marci and I both got a chance to try Bret’s invention – the Skorcher!  It is great for putting you in proper position to really activate those glutes!  Plus, with the deep stretch that it allows at the bottom of the movement, you can really feel your hammies firing.  For some reason, I didn’t get tape of Marci and I using the Skorcher.  But am I happy to say that I got 445 pounds for 10 reps! (or was it just single leg body weight reps that I did – can’t remember)  

For those you that haven’t seen the Skorcher in action, here you go…

Well, that will just about rap it up.  Thanks again Bret for letting us invade your garage.  I’ve learned a ton from you and look forward to continue learning from you!  In true Bret Contreras fashion, I’ll close with a picture of his favorite girl on his website.  Enjoy…

This post is brought to you by Sears Fit Club.

Myth #1: Eating 6 small meals per day will speed up our metabolism more than eating 3 meals per day

Meal Frequency – We all “know” that eating frequently speeds up our metabolism.  I’ve been told this ever since I got involved in working out.  If you look at the TEF (Thermic Effect of Food) you’ll recall that it burns calories to breakdown and use the foods that we eat.  Conventional wisdom tells us that if we eat often (5-7 meals per day), we can get this fat burning TEF more often throughout the day.  BUT, research is now showing us that although we get this effect more often, the effect is less pronounced with each smaller meal that we eat.  So basically it looks like this:

Thermic effect of 6 smaller meals – smaller thermic effect per meal

Thermic effect of 3 larger meals – larger thermic effect per meal

Essentially, at the end of the day, the thermic effect is going to be the same whether we eat 3 meals or 6 meals (assuming total calories are the same).  WOW!  All these years we’ve ALL been wrong about meal frequency and its role on metabolism (if you were saying this years ago, you were wise beyond your years.  Or simply lying about it now).  I do still think there are advantages to eating a little more frequently (like the fact that frequent eating helps many avoid getting to that panic starving state that has you pulling into the 1^stCrispy Crème that you come across), but apparently helping speed up metabolism isn’t one of them.

I first heard this “myth” talked about by Alan Aragon.  But who knows, in the future we may do more studies telling us that our original thoughts on meal frequency were right on (as in, it DOES speed up metabolism).  But for now, it does appear to be a myth.  I want to reiterate, I DO think that many people get better results with eating more often for a few different reasons.  Just know that speeding up your metabolism is NOT one of those reasons.

Myth #2: We should avoid foods containing cholesterol and saturated fats

Many people think this for a couple reasons. 1) poorly conducted and misinterpreted studies have been done on saturated fat and cholesterol.  The misinformation from these studies get passed on from generation to generation and become “fact.”  Check out Stephan Guyenet’s website for all the saturated fat/cholesterol information your heart desires. 2) The media (although I have recently seen some of the media come around on this – there is some hope from the media!  ) is still saying that saturated fat and cholesterol are the devil.  And the media reaches the largest number of people, making the average non-researching Joe more and more misinformed.

There have been many smart people that have already wrote articles on the saturated fat/cholesterol is bad for us myth.  So I am not going to reinvent the wheel here.  I really like this article talking about the benefits of eating the whole egg as opposed to just the egg whites.  You’ll see that the topic of cholesterol is addressed.  Here is a good quote from the article… 

“First of all, when you eat a food that contains a high amount of dietary cholesterol such as eggs, your body down-regulates it’s internal production of cholesterol to balance things out. On the other hand, if you don’t eat enough cholesterol, your body simply produces more since cholesterol has dozens of important vital functions in the body.”

The bottom line, don’t fear food if it has a little cholesterol in it.  And when it comes to saturated fat, what is the quote? “Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water,” I believe. In other words, foods like eggs that come from free range chickens, grass fed beef, organic extra virgin cocunut oil, and pasture butter to name of few, have a good amount of saturated fat in them and are healthy choices.

Some foods have saturated fat in them AND a ton of sugar, AND a ton of processed carbs, AND trans-fats.  But for some reason, all too often saturated fat gets much of the blame.  If they started to put crack in all of the water we drank, that would be like me blaming the health problem on the water, rather than the crack.  Again, don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.   Incorporating the foods I mentioned above SHOULD be a part of your nutrition plan.

Myths or not?  I’m not sure.   But for now, I believe the way the average person looks at cholesterol and saturated fat should be revisited.  And don’t freak out if you only get 4 meals in today, your metabolism will be just fine.

Favorite Carbohydate Of The Year (OTY) – Sweet Potatoes.  I never really disliked sweet potatoes, but until this year, I never realized how much I like them.  I especially like them with a good meat source…

Favorite Protein OTY – I’ve been all over grass-fed beef this year!  I love it and it goes great with sweet potatoes and some veggies.  I usually pick up mine from Trader Joe’s.

Favorite Cooking Oil OTY – Organic Extra Virgin Coconut Oil.  This stuff handles high heat well and adds a nice flavor to many foods. 

My Favorite “Type” of Cardio OTY – “Inverted Ladder” – I learned this from Tony Gentilcore and me and my clients have been “loving” it!  An example of this can be found here.  You can find a description of how to set up the sets and reps of an inverted ladder in this article.

My Favorite NBA Player To Watch In 2010 (and beyond I’m sure) – Derrick Rose.  We all knew he’d be good, but I don’t think many thought that he would progress this fast!  If he doesn’t win the MVP this year, he will definitely be in the top 5.

Favorite Sports Roundtable OTY – Though I loved the MLB Roundtable, the NFL Roundtable just beat it out as #1 for 2010.

Favorite Danny McLarty Basketball Youtube Video OTY – Even know the Youtubers seemed to like this video the most, as it has nearly 26,000 hits, I like this video more because it takes the move and then has me finishing with a basket – which is the end goal anyway! 

Favorite Fitness Article That I Published This Year - ”The War on Fat Loss“  An assist goes to Marci Nevin on this one!

Favorite Basketball Article That I Published This Year – I’m taking the easy way out… tie.  Tie between “Take Your Ball Handling Skills To The Next Level” and “Get OUT of Your High-Top Shoes“

Favorite Country Performer OTY – Eric Church.  I really didn’t know who he was until my good friends Ryan and Sarah Hoffman told my wife and I that we have to go see him when he comes to town.  So we did.  We went down to San Jose and I was floored!  You can tell that he loves what he does… and he is very good at it.  If you don’t know him yet, check him out! 

Favorite Blog OTY – Bret Contreras’ Blog. 

Favorite New Place To Post Training Info – Sears Fit Club

Favorite Movie OTY – I guess this will go to, “The Town”  – at least I can’t think of anything better off the top of my head.  Am I forgetting an obvious one?

Favorite TV Show OTY – No doubt, “The Office” – Sometimes when I’m watching it I think to myself, “this can’t get any more funny!!!”

Favorite Game OTY – Da Bears beating the Packers a couple months back.  Face, burn, ‘n all that schtuff Packer’s fans!  You know I love you GB fans – just not when we step between the internet lines!

And My Absolute Favorite Thing OTY- After 3 in vitro attempts my wife and I are finally pregnant … with twins!  It has been a difficult couple of years on this front (especially on her, with all the needles, and weight gain, and sickness, etc.), but it seems to have paid off.  Even know we have a long way to go, we are cautiously excited.  Today we are exactly 16 weeks in.  Let’s hope everything continues to go well!!!  Here’s a picture of her baby(s) bump starting to make its appearance…

Everyone finish the year strong and lets make 2011 a great one!

While this article was written for a basketball website, the exercises and progressions/regressions will work great for anyone that is new  to strength training and looking to get into it.  So if you have been a “cardio queen” (cardio only and no weight training) for the past 17 years and are finally buying in to ALL of the benefits that resistance training brings, or you have a daughter, son, nephew, niece, or coach a team of young athletes, this will serve as a GREAT starting point for you!
Basketball Strength Training For Newbies

Enjoy and I’ll see you tomorrow…

How Do You Handle Adversity?

Up first…

“Get Out of Your High-Top Shoes!”

P.S. Derrick Rose is playing as well as anybody in the league right now.  Just sayin’.

P.S.S. I’ll be back tomorrow with some more hoop talk.  Stay tuned…

Now that the weight lifting portion is covered, lets get into the cardio portion.

Inverted Ladder

I got the concept of the “inverted ladder” from Strength Coach, Tony Gentilcore.  You can use almost any exercise while using the inverted ladder as your cardio “finisher” (right after your lifting session) of the day.  You can also do this on your non-lifting day.  Here is what an inverted ladder is;

-You choose 3 exercises (BIG compound movements, not like exercises like curls for the girls)

-The first exercise you perform just 1 rep.  Then you move onto the next exercise and perform 10 reps.  And finally, for the 3rd exercise you pick a constant number of reps and stick with it until you finish the ladder (as you’ll see below, my constant in the first video was 5 push-ups, and my constant in the second video was 3 chin-ups).  When you come back to the first exercise, you add one rep (so you are now doing 2 reps), when you go back to the second exercise, you are to do one less rep than you did in round one (so 9 instead of 10).  And finally you finish off round two with the 3rd exercise and stay with the constant number throughout (5, in the case of the push-up video).  So, it will look like this in video #1:

Medicine Ball Slams X 1 rep

Box (or bench) Jumps X 10

Push-ups X 5

Medicine Ball Slams X 2

Box Jumps X 9

Push-ups X 5

Medicine Ball Slam X 3

Box Jumps X 8

Push-ups X 5

Continue with this until you are up to 10 reps on the medicine ball slams, and down to 1 rep on the box jumps.  Time yourself and then try to beat it the next time you do the same exercise sequence.

And the next video with the 3 exercises … 1) Kettlebell Swings (use a dumbbell(s) if you don’t have a kettlebell 2) Broad Jumps, 3) Chin-ups (3 reps as the “constant” in this circuit)

Do you think I taped only a portion of the entire session because;

A) I didn’t want to show off?

B) I was too tired to do the whole thing?

C) I didn’t want to make you bored by watching the entire session?

If you answered “A” then you are wrong – I didwant to show off, I was just too tired.  So, the answer is B + C.  If that was your answer congratulations, your major award will be shipped to your house on December 23rd (and Ralphie will be delivering it).

I’ve been using the inverted ladder with my clients over the last few weeks and they’ve been loving it!  Well, maybe “love” is a little stong.  Their enjoyment of the ladder has been somewhere between the enjoyment of a relaxing 90-minute massage and a punch to the stomach… that means they kind of like it, but don’t love it.  And it also means they like it WAAAY more than running on the treadmill for 30-minutes although they also seem to like a punch to the stomach more than a 30-minute jog on the treadmill.  But I digress.

Exercise Selection

As mentioned above, pick BIG compound movements.  After all, this is the cardio portion of the workout.  So “isolation” movements like calf raises or I don’t know, blinking, just won’t cut it.  Also, thinkof this as using weights to get your heart rate up to make your cardio session harder.  Do NOT think of the inverted ladder as your lifting session.  I had one of my on-line clients tell me that he used 40 pound dumbbells for one of his exercises (push presses) and said that he could barely finish.  Well duh, his 10 RM (rep max) is about 40 pounds.  I suggested next time he tries , to go with about 25 pounds.  Again, that will be more than enough to get his heart to feel like it is going to fly out of his chest, but not too much weight that the shoulders become the limiting factor (rather than his heart ‘n lungs). 

One more thing, if you are going to use a body weight exercise as one of your 3 exercises, make sure that it is one that doesn’t get you too close to muscular failure after 3-5 reps.  I chose chin-ups in one of the circuits because if I only had to do one set of chins, I could get over 20.  Therefore chins are a good choice for me.  If you can only get 4-5 chins, I’d go with another exercise if I were you.  Something like inverted rows would be a great substitute.

So there you go.  Your lifting session (again, from the routines I gave you HERE), plus the finisher will get you in and out and on with your day… just leaner than you were before!

If Santa can find time, you can find time! (just make sure your eating is juuuuust a touch more strict than his)

Routine #1

A1) Bulgarian Split Squats  4 X 6-8 

 A2) Push-ups   4 X 10   Pick the version that is most appropriate for you that barely has you getting 10 reps with PERFECT form.  Here are a bunch of options (from easiest to hardest).  

B1) Chin-ups OR Reverse Grip Latpulldowns – 4 X 6-8

B2) Swiss Ball Leg Curl/Hip Extension Combo 3 X 8/8-12 (8 leg curls immediately followed by 8-12 hip extensions)

C) McLarty Rollouts or Body Saw 2-3 X 10

Routine #2

A1) Barbell Push Press  4 X 4-6

A2) RDL or Kettlebell Swing  3 X 8-10

 B1) Inverted Row  4 X 8 -  Use a TRX Strap or a Smith Machine (I prefer TRX if you have access).

B2) Walking Lunges  3 X 12/Leg

C) 1-Leg Side Plank   2 X ALAP (As Long As Possible) – if you can’t get @ least 15 seconds per side, go with 2-leg side planks X ALAP

Progam Notes:

-Rest ALAN (As Little As Needed) between exercises without letting performance drop too much. 

-Make sure to perform a dynamic warm-up before starting the workout (leg swings, running butt kicks, body weight squats, etc.)

That’s it for the notes.  Don’t over think it, just make sure you get in, get out, and give yourself enough time to prepare that turkey for your husband and kids.  We’ll (guys) make sure we give ourselves enough time to get comfortable in our favorite chair in front of the tv while you serve us food.  After all, I’ve been told in order to keep a relationship going strong, it is important to make your wife feel important.  And if that means I HAVE TO let my wife serve me some tasty grub while I watch football, I’m going to do it for the good of the relationship… sacrifices, someone has to do it!

And now back to reality…

If you are able to get your usual full workout routines in then more power to you.  But if you find yourself “crazy busy” over the next month or so, then simply get in the above workouts for a total of 2-3 times per week.  Each workout will take you about 20 minutes.  We ALL have time for that.  I wanted to add a couple quickie cardio routines but I can’t find my USB cord.  But once I get that situated, I’ll be back with some video going over the quickie holiday cardio routines that I’m sure you all will love! :)  Stay tuned…
                                                                                                                                                

I might as well kiss my goals good bye and head back to the fridge for leftovers today.  Plus, Christmas and New Year’s are right around the corner.  On January 2nd (because January 1st you’re still nursing your hangover and the last thing in the world you are going to do is prepare healthy meals on this day… especially with all the great Bowl games on) I promise I’ll start to be good again.”  Meanwhile you, like most Americans just gained an extra 15 pounds (or whatever the national average is) over the holiday season and you’re starting your resolution from a big deficit. 

Don’t be that person.  Enjoy the holidays, enjoy your family, cheat a little, and make sure to get back on track RIGHT AWAY.  I’m posting this a week before Thanksgiving in hopes that this will sink in and give you plenty of time to get your mind right before “going into the battle,” that is the holidays.

And by the way, I’ll be posting some sample workouts for those that “are just too lazy busy” to get your workouts in during this crazy time of the year.  These workouts will take you ~ 20 minutes (honestly) and you won’t skip a beat.  But your heart sure will beat!  Good one?  No.  What’s that, you think I’m a dork?  Ouch!

All dorkiness aside, check back shortly (tomorrow maybe?) with these quick, time-friendly workouts.  Time is not an issue – no excuses!

Love,

Me

“The War on Fat Loss“